


but he is so persistent

by fiddleogold_againstyoursoul



Series: all black (everythin') [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-09 09:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11101566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiddleogold_againstyoursoul/pseuds/fiddleogold_againstyoursoul
Summary: Jesse is burdened with memories, but then again, so is Hanzo. There are angsty gay dads, conversations about how omnics have sex and just beneath it all, love.





	but he is so persistent

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first OW fic, much less mchanzo/r76/genyatta, so i hope i did okay! xx
> 
> jefe: boss  
> hijo: son

When Jesse first meets Hanzo Shimada, he hates him with a burning passion. From all the stories he heard, he'd conjured up a mental image of a hook-nosed man, greasy hair and an ugly grin. Instead there is this small sparrow of one, long hair scraped back and tied with a yellow ribbon, features sharp and eyes heavy with some great emotion.  _this is the man who hurt genji,_ he has to remind himself,  _t_ _he man who'd kill his own brother for some notion of_ honour.

He ignores the hand offered to him in favour of staring. Glaring, really. The tension in the room prickles. Hanzo retracts his hand, but he doesn't look surprised.

Later, Jesse will understand that no form of rejection will surprise Hanzo Shimada.

'Scuse me,' he hears himself say, pushing past into the kitchen where Jack is waiting with pancakes. Hanzo doesn't join them for breakfast. 

When Genji hears of this snubbing, he tracks Jesse down and they have a heated argument he feels guilty about provoking afterwards. He doesn't recall the last time Genji got this angry. _before zen,_  he thinks. Zenyatta got a lot of the anger out of Genji. 

'He's my brother, Jesse.'

'He tried to kill you,' he hisses back, but it falls flat with the look he feels Genji giving even behind the visor. 'He's a monster.'

'All of us have done things we've regretted,' Genji snaps. 'You don't regret anything, Jesse? Ever?'

That makes him fall quiet. Because he'd be lying if he said so. Because he's been lying to himself all along anyway, about why he dislikes Hanzo Shimada so much. It's not just Genji, though that's a large factor in the equation.

It's him.

Hanzo Shimada, his grief and his concept of honour, reminds Jesse too much of himself before Overwatch: the stupid fucking teenager who thought he knew what he was doing. 

Genji gives a small metallic hiss from beneath the visor. Then, sensing Jesse's anger dissipate, he sighs. 

'I used to be as angry as you,' he says, 'but anger is a useless emotion, Jesse. It can prompt you into decisions, spite you into doing things you otherwise would've left alone. But then when it is gone, you'll find that you were fighting for nothing all along.'

'Genji -'

'You're more like him than you think, you know. You're both stubborn souls who can't forgive yourselves.'

Jesse watches him stalk off, ribbon flapping behind him. He sighs.

That evening he finds Hanzo on the roof, watching the sunset. The smaller man has his bow and quiver laid out beside him, one hand protectively curling around the former like it's a ward against evil. The dragons in his tattoo ripple in this light: Jesse would probably be more awed if he didn't already know what kind of havoc those majestic creatures could wreak. Seeing them contained within a tattoo, nothing more than patterned ink on skin, was strange.

'Evening.'

Hanzo looks startled. For a moment his face is open, vulnerable. Then it closes up with a snap Jesse can almost hear, and he's standing.

He holds out his hands.

'Easy there. 'M not here to make trouble.'

'I will take my leave if you are uncomfortable with my presence,' Hanzo says. Like it's a given. 'I do not wish to cause you - any of you, for the matter - discomfort.'

'Good thing I was here to talk to ya, then.'

Jesse sits. A moment passes. And then Hanzo does, too, tentatively; Jesse sees his hand still on his bow, though fat lot of good that'd do him if Jesse decided to spring him close-range. He reckons Hanzo can hold his own, though: those muscles can't have come from nothing.

Then Hanzo breaks the silence.

'You have every right to be angry,' he says, softly. The last rays of sunlight dance over them: Jesse feels sleepy, warm. 'As does Genji. I would rather - I would rather he be angry than what he is, now.'

'What is he, now?'

A hum comes in return.

'Different,' Hanzo says. Jesse looks at him. 'He is different. Not what I expected.'

'I mean, he is a cyborg now, darlin'. If you were expecting flesh and blood, there are some miracles even our Angela can't work.'

He stiffens at the endearment, and Jesse wonders if he went too far. Genji never took offence, but Hanzo isn't Genji. Far from it. 

'Not like that. I expected him to - he told me he'd found peace, in the time he'd spent away. Said that I should find mine, too. That he'd forgiven me. But I cannot - it is not my  _place_ to forgive what I have done...' Hanzo trails off.

Jesse makes a point of staring into the distance. He thinks about running with Deadlock, for a few moments. Thinks about dust kicked up by horse hooves and gunshots ringing in his ears and frightened faces turned towards him. Thinks about remorse twisting in his belly along with hastily choked down food and his serape catching in doors slammed too quickly and alcohol so strong it makes tears spring to his eyes.

Thinks about being a kid, and making stupid decisions.

'We all do things we regret,' he finds himself saying. 'Dunno 'bout you, sweetheart, but I sure ain't perfect, either. Everyone here's got a past of some sort.'

'None like mine,' Hanzo says. He sounds gruff.

 _you're more like him than you think,_ genji said.

Jesse glances at him. He needs a cigar, though he promised Angela he'd give 'em up. Old habits, much like old soldiers, are hard to kill.

'None like yours, nah. All different. But maybe that's the charm of it.'

'Charm is a strange word choice.'

'Yeah. But there isn't a better word to describe it, the way we are,' Jesse says, kicking out at thin air. 'Look at Ja - 76. He has his own fuckin' grave. Ana came back from the dead, too. Mei lost a good few years frozen away in ice. And -'

And me, he wants to say.  _i'm as fucked up as you are._

Hanzo's eyes flicker with some semblance of understanding. 'I understand,' he says, soft. 'But I cannot - as easily as Genji has, I cannot forgive myself that way.'

 _i do not have the right,_ Jesse really hears. 

_it's not my right to tell him that i understand._

'Take your time, darlin'.' Jesse says instead, glaring at the darkening sky. 'We've got plenty of it, at least for now.'

'Thank you, McCree-san.'

'I'm tryna say, I don't - I don't hate you, y'know?'

Hanzo tilts his head. His tattoo shifts again, and it's distracting, but not as distracting as those dark eyes in this light. 'I would not blame you if you did,' he replies. 'Good night, McCree-san.'

Before Jesse can respond, he slips off the roof, just another moving shadow in the night.

 

* * *

 

Before Jesse was recruited into Blackwatch, he remembers alcohol, gunpowder and bad decisions. 

(Blood. So much blood. Not all of it he sheds personally, but walking into a room after the Deadlock gang is just as bad. Bullet holes in the wall, broken picture frames. Bodies, damaged at best, cold at worst. Children looking at him like he's their saviour when he bursts into a room until they see the gun on his belt and the look in his eyes, and realise he's a monster like the rest of them, too.

He used to wake up cold to those memories. Fresh, like new wounds: accusing eyes, pointed fingers, posters of the bounty on his head trampled into the dirt. A whistle, brains splattered over white walls. He used to wake up to those memories in Blackwatch.

He used to run down to Gabe's office where the man, bless him, would always be awake, would always grumble but let him in anyway. He'd sit there and watch his  _jefe_ file paperwork in silence, feeling his heart hammering in his chest as his nightmares chased him down even in broad daylight.

'Don't let them get to you,' Gabriel would say. 'Those memories? Have 'em if you'd like, stew a little, but goddamn. Don't let them eat you whole.'

'Easier said than done,  _jefe.'_

The memories lessened with more time at Blackwatch. More time with Gabriel.

One time on a mission, someone lobbed a grenade Jesse's way, and he didn't react nearly fast enough. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the outcome, but then he felt a rough tug on his arm and Gabriel was yanking him away from the grenade. It went off. So did Jesse's pulse rate, but he was safe.

For now.

'Thanks, dad,' he stammered, eyes stinging. He didn't know what he was saying. He thought Gabe would be angry, but his eyes just widened. And then he pulled Jesse in again, but this time for a hug that lasted longer than it should've given the circumstances.

'Don't scare me like that, _h_ _ijo,'_ Gabriel muttered.)

Jesse doesn't dream of Deadlock anymore. He dreams of Blackwatch, of a father he never got to keep, and an explosion, smoke filling his lungs and tears his eyes, a helplessness in the face of something so much bigger than any of them. He dreams of Gabriel.

Most of them are nightmares.

 

* * *

 

In the training simulations, it's hard not to be captivated with the way Hanzo moves. Agile, he leaps and vaults over obstacles, cutting down the bots with arrows that never seem to miss. Even if they don't hit dead centre, Jesse knows for a fact an arrow to the face has to hurt like a little bitch. He grins at the thought and is nearly peppered with bullets as bots advance on him.

'Whoa, shit -'

He hurtles into two and takes out another three. From beside him, Soldier: 76 clucks his tongue beneath his mask and shoots the fourth. 

'Thanks.'

'In a normal battlefield you'd be dead,' Jack replies, visor glinting. 'Focus, kid, or you die.'

_i'm not a kid anymore._

Jesse wants to retort, the way he used to do, but then his tongue numbs and he chooses to shoot at a bot rushing in instead. It falls to the ground with a little beep, and he realises Hanzo's gone. Moved to another area, perhaps, or maybe he's been taken out already. 

That leaves him with Jack.

He puts a bullet in another bot and tries not to think too much about anything else as he sprints into the next area. The gates close behind them right as Jack slides underneath, a spring in his step like he's not a fuckin' dinosaur by now already.

If he didn't know better, Jesse would look back, wonder if anyone else was coming in after Jack.

 

* * *

 

(In Blackwatch, Jack Morrison was a subject of animosity. He'd stalk into a room, all blond hair and grins, and Gabriel would visibly freeze. He talked like he was reading from a superhero film script and lectured like a disappointed father, and Jesse hated him.

'McCree,' he'd acknowledge, and Jesse would nod, spin away, leaving Gabriel alone with Captain America 2.0. 

Jack's talks with Gabe always ended in shouting matches. Both were temperamental hotheads who needed family therapy or somethin', and neither knew to be the first to step down when things got heated up. Jesse would come back to see half of Gabriel's office lying across the room and a furious look boiling in his  _jefe's_ eyes, and he'd slink down the hallway to his quarters till he was called back out.

The mess was always cleaned up: there was never any evidence of their fights beyond what Jesse walked into and away from.

There was evidence left over from their last fight. An embittered, impossibly alive Jack Morrison, a fracture in their infrastructure that cost them the Overwatch programme.

Jesse was there when the explosion happened. He'd run into the building, heart pounding; he'd screamed and cried for his  _jefe,_ for Jack. 

Neither answered. He'd mourned both.

One returned, and he - selfishly, stupidly - still felt like he couldn't forgive him for leaving Gabriel behind.)

 

* * *

 

Hanzo, Jesse begins to notice, doesn't eat with the others. He sits with them a while, waits until the chatter's at its peak and no one is inclined to notice him leaving, and then he stands and goes as silently as he came in. Freaky Shimada stuff: Genji can do the same thing.

Said Genji eyes his brother as he leaves the room one evening, letting out a small metal whirr.

'He's still unaccustomed to all this,' he says, sounding as mournful as he can behind the mask. 'I wish I could help him settle.'

'In his own time, Genji.'

Zenyatta squeezes his student's fingers slowly, all too human. Maybe he knows too that after all this, that's still what Genji wants: to be treated like he's human.

There's a soft look in the omnic's eyes, which is a strange thing to say. One Jesse isn't sure if he should be privy to.

So he stands, pushing away his bowl of vegetable stew. Angela can try and try, but she'll never be as good a chef as she is a doctor. He tips his head solemnly at her as he leaves, spotting a flash of a yellow ribbon around the next corner.

'Shimada-san,' he calls out, quickening his pace. He rounds the bend and sees Hanzo, looking sheepish.

'Howdy. Where're you headed off to?'

Hanzo colours a little. He'd be damned if it weren't the cutest darn thing Jesse had ever seen.

'I was not - hungry,' the man tries, voice unsteady, 'and I took my leave. I was headed back to my quarters -'

'Nah, you weren't. S'okay if you'd prefer me to keep my sniffer out of it, but I'm curious: where d'ya disappear to?'

The roof, maybe. Many a time has Jesse happened across Hanzo buried in his thoughts and memories on the roof, eyes foggy. Once he had his head in his hands, body shaking. Jesse wanted to reach out to him, then, gather that small body in his arms and hold him till the nightmares disappeared. But that hadn't been his problem. _i have no place,_ he remembered. He slipped down, instead, resolving to be nicer to Hanzo when he saw him in the morning, eyes red-rimmed and throat suspiciously hoarse.

Hanzo stares at him. 'Come,' he says, after a long pause, and Jesse does.

 

* * *

 

 _('Hijo,'_ Gabriel would say if he could see him, 'get the fuck out of there before I whoop your ass.'

_Don't scare me like that._

Jesse crawled along the hallway, choking. The wet handkerchief over his mouth wasn't doing much, and he could feel the smoke filling up his lungs, suffocating him slowly. He couldn't stand it anymore. He pushed backwards on his palms, hating himself every second of it, this retreat, this failure.

 _'Gabe,'_ he screamed,  _'Jack, where are you?'_

Tears streamed down both sides of his face, and he couldn't tell whether they were from the smoke or the grief and anger at himself for being unable to go on. Both. Both was the answer.

_'Jefe!'_

Jesse lingered too long, caught too many a whiff of smoke. He collapsed outside the main doorway, just as the ceiling gave in. Brick and splinters of wood showered down over him, and he screamed as part of the ceiling fell in over his left arm, covering it completely. He felt a tearing. Numbing. The serape began to darken.

_'Jesse?'_

Angela's voice, panicked, floated over to him. Blonde hair bobbed over him, eyes frantic. He gave her a lopsided grin and coughed, red splattering her otherwise pristine uniform.

He couldn't feel his arm. He couldn't -)

 

* * *

 

They're in the forest behind their headquarters, and Hanzo is running. Jesse grabs at his hat and breaks into a sprint after him, the only way he can keep up: for a shorter man, Hanzo sure is quick. His yellow ribbon flaps behind him furiously, and Jesse is so entranced with it he nearly trips over a tree root.

'Are you alright?'

He regains his balance, grinning. Hanzo is staring at him, looking amused; there are the beginnings of a smile on his face that fades as soon as he notices Jesse looking at him.

'Not much further now,' he says, glancing away, 'Can you hear it?'

Jesse closes his eyes, and he hears water. Rushing, running, rippling: he opens his eyes, and Hanzo is staring at him again.

'A river?'

It's hesitant, Jesse ain't good at guesswork.

'Of sorts,' Hanzo says, and this time he takes a little longer to look away. Jesse realises his face is heating up. 'Be careful, there are more roots in this area, and I would hate to tell the others that you tripped and broke your neck on one. They would be more likely to believe I killed you.'

Jesse bristles, but there is only a certain kind of dark humour in Hanzo's voice. He starts walking, this time considerably slower, and Jesse joins him after some deliberation.

His prosthetic arm hums, unprompted; he strokes it absently.

 _it is a memory of my failure,_ he thinks, but pushes the thought down; forgiveness is beyond him yet, but he does not have to dwell on those thoughts.

Very soon they emerge into a clearing where a merry river is running: the waters sparkle in the fading light, little silver fish appearing and disappearing between ripples. 

Jesse remembers to breathe.

'Gee, this is pretty as all hell.'

An achingly slow smile spreads over Hanzo's face, and it lingers long enough to make Jesse's heart twitch. The former sits on the bank and pats the ground next to him.

Jesse hesitates. Then he sits.

'It is sometimes too noisy in the communal dining room,' Hanzo says, softly. 'I feel - trapped, you could say. Where I am from, we are not nearly so loud unless we are drunk.'

Jesse chuckles. 'Where I'm from,' he says, 'we are loud till we're drunk. And then louder.'

'Evidently.' Hanzo gestures at Jesse's whole get-up: serape, boots with spurs at the heels, cowboy hat. 'Looking at you, one already feels overwhelmed.'

'You're a real hoot, Hanzo.'

This is met with a soft, sharp exhale, almost laughter. 

'Are you loud when you drink?' Jesse doesn't mean to startle Hanzo with the question, but he sees the look shift over the smaller man's face: guarded, suspicious. 'Sorry, that was prob'bly a weird question.'

'You should see Genji drunk,' Hanzo replies. The look goes away. Jesse feels his heart twitch, again, start pounding in his ribcage. 

'I have.'

'Before, or after Z -'

'Both. Funny, all that tranquility seems to disappear when you get a couple pints in the man.' Jesse hides a smile and leans back on the palms of his hands, thinking of a time where Genji bodily flung himself at Zenyatta from across the room, loudly declaring his devotion. If ever an omnic had seemed flustered, it'd been Zen, then.

Hanzo seems to pick up on it.

'Zenyatta is good for my brother,' he says, retreating back into himself. 'I never thought I would see Genji this...disciplined. At ease with himself.'

'Guess freaky robot sex really does a number on people.'

Hanzo sputters, face heating up, and Jesse laughs and laughs and laughs. After a while Hanzo joins in, snorting, and Jesse doesn't think he's seen anything more beautiful in his whole life.

'Do not speak of my brother's intimacies again,' Hanzo barks when the laughter has died down, though he's still clutching his sides. 'I do not want to envision anything they may or may not do within their quarters.'

'You do reckon they  _can_ do it, though?'

'Enough, McCree.'

'Does Zen have some sorta robot dick? How does that work, anyways?'

_'McCree.'_

'You've really never consi -'

Hanzo knocks him over, laughter rumbling in his throat. They stay there too long, Hanzo's face hovering inches over Jesse's own, their breathing laboured and cheeks flushed.

If it means he can't look Genji  _or_ Zenyatta in the eye for a few weeks after, Jesse's alright with that.

 

* * *

 

(Jesse woke up sweating, strapped down to a bed. He panicked for a moment, taking stock of his situation before he spotted Angela at the doorway, talking to someone in hushed tones. Then he collapsed back onto the bed. Exhausted.

He turned slightly.

Peacekeeper lay on the stand beside him, battered and bloody. His hat did, too. His belt was hung up in the open closet opposite the room, along with the serape that looked like it'd recently been cleaned.

Yet there was something missing from him that he realised as soon as he attempted to lift his left arm.

A whirr.

'Oh,' he said, the sound dying in his throat as he saw the prosthetic. It clicked and whirred as he moved it about, had a strange similarity in weight with his flesh one. 

He'd lost several things in the fire, he realised: his arm being the first. And the least important to him.

His home, his place in Blackwatch, obliterated.

His pride and honour, in finally being known as somewhat of a hero, banished with the Petras Act.

His  _jefe,_ his father. Not bound by their blood but blood they spilled together.

Jesse was still lost in his own grief when Angela walked back in.

_say, doc, can ya do me a solid?_

He asked to be taken off the morphine. Once the numbness had faded, the pain flooded back in, a welcome distraction from his grief.)

 

* * *

 

The training sessions are put to a halt midway when Winston comes in and asks who's next on the mission roster.

Jesse takes down two Talon agents with a bullet and a smack to the face with Peacekeeper, and doesn't notice when a third comes rushing at him. Before he can react, they fall to the ground, an arrow protruding from the back of their head. He glances upwards, sees Hanzo nocking his bow from the building.

'Thanks,' he mouths. He doesn't think Hanzo sees.

Lucio and Hana race ahead, storming the base. Jesse follows behind, pausing to reload Peacekeeper. They're too young for this, he thinks, just kids, but silences the thought when Hana knocks down five agents at once. 

He was a kid, once. Though barely.

'The files Winston wants are in the main storage room,' Jesse says, shooting an agent that happens to sit up from across the room. Shouts come from the hallway: he tenses. Hana shoots him a look.

'Go, Lucio and I will hold them back. Hanzo,' she chirps into the comm, 'we need you covering McCree.'

'I've located a side entrance,' comes the reply. 'The blueprint Winston sent is...confusing, but I'll take out the Talon agents as they come. We'll rendezvous outside the main storage.'

'Already ahead of ya, hon.'

'Be silent, cowboy.'

'Please don't flirt over the comm,' Hana complains, 'you're old and it's gross.'

Jesse grins and charges ahead, immediately meeting gunfire on both ends. He vaults over the ones in the centre and the Hana-Lucio combo take it from there: he hopes to God they'll be alright on their own. 

Bang, bang; agents fall. He pauses to reload and then crashes through another door. A bullet catches him in the shoulder: he winces, but manages to take the agent out anyways. His serape darkens where the bullet went through.  _at least it's a clean shot,_ he thinks, miserably, and then,  _i can't afford to lose this arm, too._

When he finally bursts into where he needs to be, he sees Hanzo clutching his side, face white. His dragons shift around him, shimmer in the air. There are mounds of bodies on the floor around them. 

Panic seizes him, first, a frantic flutter. Then relief.

'Good lord.'

'I am fine,' Hanzo grits out through clenched teeth, 'go, get what Winston needs. My dragons - they have it under control.'

'I ain't leaving you like this, darlin'.' Jesse scoops Hanzo up - slowly, so to not aggravate the wound - and the man groans. Pain arcs through him from his already wounded shoulder. 'Sorry, fuck, Mercy'll have my hide. Try not to move too much.'

'You are - insufferable, cowboy.'

Beads of sweat line Hanzo's forehead. He grabs Peacekeeper weakly, and Jesse's heart nearly stops as he fires at a Talon agent that was sneaking up behind both of them. He wonders if Hanzo can feel it, pressed against Jesse's chest as he is. 'Get inside,' he orders, 'I'll cover us.'

The dragons follow them as they go, flanking both ends: Jesse would feel awed if the situation they were in weren't so darn terrifying.

He was never worried about dying, himself. But he can't let Hanzo die.

His fingers are slippery with blood when he pulls them away from Hanzo's waist, and the smaller man's eyes flash over with pain.

'There,' Jesse says, eyes finding a crimson folder on a shelf. This seems too easy. He sets Hanzo down on a chair - the man shifts, protesting - and moves towards it. The moment he presses his fingers to the folder, something grabs him.

 

* * *

 

(In Blackwatch, Jesse knew about Gabriel and Jack. Their fights, their friendship, their angry kisses in hallways with Jack shoving his hands down  the front of Gabriel's jeans and Gabe grabbing at his ass and both of them too damn stubborn to admit anything was going on.

When Gabe first calls him hijo __ in front of Jack, the blond's eyes snap open. He looks shocked, and Jesse  _prays and prays_ he doesn't think it's a sex thing.

'You actually adopted the damn kid,' he said, 'Christ.'

'That makes you stepfather,' Jesse said, too smart for his own damn good. 'Evening, Pa.'

'Please don't ever call me Pa again.'

'Lighten up,' Gabriel rumbled, 'he's as much your kid as he is mine. If you hadn't given him clearance, he'd be rotting away in a cell somewhere. Wasted.'

'As I recall I disapproved of your recruiting him,' Jack said, but fixed Jesse with an appraising look anyway that made him feel warm from the inside out. 'Now, I'm...not so sure. You're not completely terrible, kid.'

'Thanks, Pa.' 

He ducked away before Jack could catch him, Gabriel's laughter ringing in his ears behind them. Jesse went to sleep content, a warm feeling curling in the pit of his stomach. The next week, the two fought for the last time, and Jesse was ripped from that reality wholly.)

 

* * *

 

Reaper's hands close around his throat and he struggles, trying to push him off. Hanzo cries out weakly, Peacekeeper in his hands firing shots that just glance off Reaper's back.

'Stop,' he chokes out; he kicks out hard against Reaper and the hands loosen, he drops and rolls.

The dragons shimmer in the air around them, snarling, but Jesse knows their purpose is to protect their master, not anyone else. _and i wouldn't have it any other way,_ he thinks. Reaper grabs a new set of guns from his belt and points them at him. He forgets how to react, freezes over.

'McCree,' Hanzo calls out, incensed, and the dragons slam into Reaper. He flies backwards, dissolving into black smoke, but almost immediately rematerialises beside Jesse again. 

'You should  _not_ have done that,' Reaper growls, and Jesse is stupid for recognising  _something_ in that voice, something so familiar and home-like and -

 _'Jefe,'_ he cries, putting himself between Reaper and Hanzo, and something behind that mask freezes for a split second before two bullets slam into his chest. His breastplate protects him, but the shock still sends him crashing backwards and he feels his ribs shattering; Hanzo makes a furious sort of sound that breaks something else inside of him.

 _'Jefe,_ please.'

'Don't - call - me - that.'

Reaper advances slowly, and still he crawls in front of Hanzo, grabbing Peacekeeper. The blood on Hanzo's  _kyudo-gi_ is spreading, and the man's whole face looks drained. If Reaper takes Jesse out, it'll open Hanzo up to attack. The dragons cannot protect him forever. Jesse feels panic flood his lungs as Reaper raises his guns once more -

'Gabriel,' Jack says, and bullets fly into Reaper's cloak, 'leave our son alone.'

Jesse moves sluggishly, glancing to and from Jack; his vision swims as he scoops up Hanzo and stumbles outside, where Lucio and Hana are waiting. Unceremoniously, he dumps the archer in Lucio's arms - the dragons in the air around him snap and shift, a warning - and presses a brisk kiss to Hanzo's forehead before he dashes back into the room, expecting the worst.

Instead, there is Jack.

He hovers over Reaper, mask lying discarded some way away and tears dripping down his open face. His scar gleams, ugly, in this light.

Jesse wants to cry. His chest aches, and his shoulder is so soaked in blood it feels heavy. 

'Don't hurt him, Pa,' he says, his voice a hoarse whisper. Jack turns his eyes on him, and they are so, so very scared. 'Please.'

He blacks out, then. Falls to the floor with a sickening thump as all his memories and visions flood to his mind at once, washing over him like a sea full of blood that won't stop eating away at him.

 

* * *

 

(Light, twisting through darkness. A soft breathy laugh, fingers carding through his scalp, a wet washcloth on his head.)

 

* * *

 

Jesse opens his eyes. A hospital ward, again, white walls and ceiling. Panic bubbles to his throat; he can't have another flashback, he can't take it, he - he sees who's sitting in the chair beside his bed, and exhales deeply.

'Hanzo,' he says, and the archer stirs, roused from his sleep. A pang of guilt seizes him as Hanzo straightens, sleepiness disappearing from his vigilant dark eyes in an instant. 

'You are awake.' Carefully, Hanzo reaches for a pitcher of water on the stand, where like usual, Jesse finds his belt, hat, and Peacekeeper. He glimpses a slip of bandages as Hanzo's sweater shifts upwards, and remembers the wound in the archer's side with another terrible pang of guilt. 'Here. You must drink this, and rest - do not exert yourself.'

'Hanzo, darlin', you're hurt yourself.'

Jesse sits up and feels pain shoot through his right shoulder. He wiggles his fingers, and is relieved beyond measure when they respond to him. 

'Barely.' A ghost of a smile appears on Hanzo's face, though it's gone just as fast. He pushes the glass of water into Jesse's hands. He's not dressed in his _kyudo-gi,_  Jesse notices, but a simple black sweater and loose jeans that slip slightly below his waist. 'Drink, cowboy. And be quiet.'

Jesse smiles at that, but takes the cup. The water is cold. He forces down two gulps, and then sets the cup back down with a thunk.

'Sure you should be out and about, Han?'

'I explicitly asked Angela for permission.' Hanzo's eyes glint. 'She was not pleased, to be sure, but eventually cracked. I can be very persuasive when I want to.'

'Hanzo, that's - terrifying.'

A pause.

'Thank you,' he adds. He can feel his ears heating up.

'Jesse,' Hanzo says, suddenly, and Jesse's eyes snap to him. His cheeks redden: he doesn't think Hanzo's ever addressed him by his first name before. 'I - when you were unconscious, I didn't - I thought -'

'Hey, darlin'. I'm just peachy, now.'

'I was worried,' Hanzo says. He ducks his head, as if embarrassed: Jesse sees pink over his cheeks. 

'So was I. About you, I mean. I, uh.'

'Shut up, cowboy.'

'Yeah. Okay.'

Silence.

Then Hanzo kind of thrusts his head forwards, a little shy, and Jesse does, too; their foreheads knock, and both of them pull away a little. Jesse laughs, Hanzo is bright red. Then they actually kiss. 

It doesn't feel like a rollercoaster, or firecrackers, or all that jazz. It feels right. It feels...easy, to be this open. It feels like home: Jesse's fingers tracing Hanzo's sharp cheekbones, the look of reverie in Hanzo's eyes, their tongues exploring each other's mouths. The little cut on Hanzo's lip, the new scar over Jesse's chin.

When they break away, Jesse can still taste the feeling of Hanzo's lips, a little hard and rough, and vaguely metallic from the cut.

'Oh,' he says, and Hanzo grins, eyebrows set on that broad forehead. 'That was...that was lovely, darlin', thank you.'

'Shut up, cowboy,' Hanzo repeats, but it's fond.

Someone clears their throat at the doorway, evidently having witnessed some, if not all of that. Cheeks flushed, Jesse glances over: Angela's standing there, looking embarrassed. 

'I'll let you have your moment later,' she says, trying to maintain a professional tone (and failing), 'but Jesse, Jack's asking for you.'

'He's okay?'

'Just a little beaten up,' she smiles, 'Nothing Lucio couldn't handle on his own. Was on his feet by the time we got you boys back here.'

_and jefe?_

He can barely formulate the question.

'And Ga - and the other person we brought back?'

Jesse doesn't dare entertain the thought for too long. Angela's eyes are knowing. Not sad, not pitiful. That makes something leap, a flare of hope in his empty chest. 

'In the next room. But Jesse, wait -' She grabs his sleeve as he spins to go, and Hanzo puts a hand on the small of his back that sends little bolts of electricity all throughout his body. 'It's not - it may not be what you are hoping for. He, I mean. He's been resting, and he needs to rest for some more. So tread lightly, please.'

Jesse stares at her, feeling nothing but numbness.

'I don't know what I'm hoping for, doc,' he says, and turns to go.

To see.

 

* * *

 

 _('Hijo,'_ he heard Gabriel's voice in his head, 'get off your ass and do something, for fuck's sake.'

Jesse stared at the recall. Winston's message played, stuck on repeat, urging him to rejoin the ranks of Overwatch. To help them be what they once were, and more, perhaps.

 _i am not a hero,_ he thought, bitterly,  _i am not the one you want._

A hero would've managed to find Gabriel and Jack. Pull them out of the rubble, unscathed, walk away with a badge and a pat on the back. A hero would've never gone back to vigilantism, to having a bounty bigger than his ego over his head again and a life he thought he left behind with Deadlock.

 _You're no hero,_ hijo.  _You're something else. And right now, we need that something else._

So he accepted the recall. So he showed up with the same old shit-eating grin the team needed, and pushed every other thought under, so deep they almost never resurfaced again. So he only pulled Peacekeeper out of his belt for the good of  _something,_ someone, somewhere.)

 

* * *

 

Jesse steps into the room, Hanzo by his side, hand still pressed to the small of his back. His blind spot, Gabriel once told him, the place he couldn't guard well enough. It was Gabriel who took up that guard behind him in Blackwatch, firing at anyone who dared transgress those walls, that guard.

It is Hanzo, now: in place of a father, is a lover.

Apt.

The first thing he sees is Jack, without his visor. His scarred face lifts; there is something very old in those eyes. But they are not angry. They are not sad. They are not guilty, as so often Jesse has seen them.

 _we must acknowledge our right to forgive ourselves,_ Jesse thinks, something Genji would say. Hanzo stiffens, like he can tell what he's thinking.

Jack's body is rigid, and there's a tightness around his eyes and lips, as if he's expecting to be lectured. Which is funny, because he's always been the one doing the lecturing.

'Pa,' Jesse says, and Jack shifts, lets them see the figure on the bed.

Jesse stumbles forward. Hanzo is quick to follow, a Japanese expletive muttered under his breath as he wraps an arm around Jesse. The dragons on his tattoo shift, recognising what - who - once was a threat.

And maybe still is, after all.

Gabriel's face is wrapped in bandages. What isn't shifts, black tendrils of smoke and soot, under them; he looks to be in pain. 

But he is alive.

And he is  _here._

Jesse realises he's crying. Hanzo's arm around him curls tighter: warmth, comfort, steadying him. Gabriel's eyes shift to him, and for an ugly, terrifying moment, there is nothing but black in them.

And then, recognition.

'Don't go fucking crying on me, _h_ _ijo,'_ Gabriel says, voice raspy and hoarse but still so  _Gabriel,_ and Jesse grins through the tears. He's shaking. Hanzo holds him close, and he's never felt this hopeful. So hopeful. 'I taught you better.'

'Yeah, you did,  _jefe.'_

He swallows, but doesn't dare go any nearer. Gabe senses this, and though disappointment flashes through his eyes briefly, it is of one who has acknowledged the reason behind that disappointment. As Hanzo had.

As Hanzo still does. As he will, for a long time yet.

Gabe's eyes flash mischievously for a moment.

'Didja miss me?' 

A cruel joke. 

Jack goes over, now. He seems to grapple with his feelings for a moment before Gabriel grabs him, and they both hold on for so long Jesse backs away, feeling like he's a teenager just walked into Gabe's office again.

Hanzo's grip on him is firm. It slides away now as the archer realises Jesse doesn't need it, anymore; he makes to leave, but Jesse grabs his arm.

'Let's leave these old men,' he says, tearing his gaze away from the reverent look in Gabriel's eyes as the old soldier stares back up at Jack, 'and get back to where we were before, huh, darlin'?'

Hanzo is all teeth, arching up to nip possessively at Jesse's neck once they're out of sight.

'You finally have a good idea,' he hums, the tone of his voice sending a dangerous thrill to every part of Jesse's body, 'cowboy.'

They manage to not rip out any stitches or refracture any bones, though God knows how.

 _lookin' out for me,_ Jesse thinks,  _somewhere out there, someone is._

He's wrong, though. He's always just needed to look out for himself.

 

* * *

 

They're set to attend a briefing. Nothing special, just the monthly one Winston insists on having, this time especially because Reaper's joined the ranks again. The room shifts when Jesse walks in. Satya, Fareeha, Mei and Zarya look up from their card game; Ana, Torbjorn and Reinhardt fix him with a stare he can't read. Bastion emits a series of beeps in Orisa's direction he'll have to ask a translation of later, and Winston's eyebrows lift as Tracer winks. Genji and Zenyatta break away from their conversation to glance at him; beside them, Hanzo smiles.

That gives him all the courage he needs.

Flanked by Jack and Gabriel, Angela following behind like the beacon of light she is, Jesse strides into the room and draws a chair out beside Hanzo.

The looks shift to Gabriel, instead. 

His bandages have come off, but his skin still shifts dangerously between solid and not. Jack has his mask back on, visor gleaming red as he guides Gabriel down to a seat at the end of the table, and plonks himself down beside him. Angela makes her way over to Fareeha and sits.

A moment passes. And then Winston stands up.

'Welcome back, Gabriel Reyes, alias Reaper.'

'Alias no, actually, that's a terrible name,' Jack cuts in, and Gabe glares at him. 'Did you glance through some teenager's emo musings, or something?'

'You're insufferable.'

 _'I'm_ insufferable?'

'Very well,' Winston says, sounding amused - and mildly terrified, 'Welcome back, Gabriel. I'm sure you both can go over the alias issue later.'

'Thanks. And, uh, sorry for trying to kill you all those times.' 

Reinhardt snorts. It's infectious.

That's all it takes, a good snicker all around, and then everyone relapses back into a comfortable silence as Winston begins the debriefing. Jesse lets go of a breath he didn't even know he was holding, and Hanzo presses up against him, dragons rumbling against his bare skin. 

'You were worried,' he says, eyes on Jesse's face.

'Not with you 'round, never, sugar.'

Hanzo flushes and makes a point of not looking at him, but he doesn't pull away when Jesse leans into him.

'Saps.'

Genji's visor blinks at him, what he's learned to interpret as a wink after all this time, and the cyborg purrs up closer to Zen, their fingers lacing together. 

Jesse can't focus on what Winston's saying.

 _this is the happiest i've ever been,_ he thinks, and when Hanzo turns inquisitive eyes on him, sensing his detachment, he sneaks a small kiss and adds onto that thought,  _this is the happiest i'll ever be._

 

* * *

 

A month later, Jesse's having a lovely dinner with Hanzo at some Japanese restaurant by the beach and has to retract that thought when Gabriel and Jack show up with shit-eating grins and paperwork he doesn't understand what for until he sees PETITION FOR ADULT ADOPTION printed over the first slip in bold.

Hysterics ensue. Or, in terms of Jesse, a whole five minutes worth of a blank stare before he snaps back into reality and starts emoting.

Halfway through a session of letting gibberish thoughts spill from his lips, he glances at Hanzo's face and realises something barbarous.

'- hold on just a tic, you  _knew_ about this, didntcha? That's why you panicked and had us turn round to fetch your hair ribbon. You'd planned to let it down for tonight!'

Hanzo smiles, and he finds he doesn't have the heart to be mad, no matter how terrible the traffic was on the way back or how they nearly lost their reservation, they were so late.

'Jesus, you really want a son like this on your hands?'

He gestures towards himself, but his grin is so wide it might split his face in two.

'It's a lot to ask from you,' Gabriel says, grinning, 'and I'm still recovering and all, so if you wanna wait a bit, Jack and I can understand -'

_'Jefe?'_

'Yeah?'

'Shut up, of course I'll sign.' Jesse crushes Jack and Gabe both in a hug, and Hanzo's eyes are soft, fond, when he meets them: a look that makes his heart skip. He hoists Jack over his shoulder, yelling in triumph, and only puts him down when both Gabriel and Hanzo intervene -

'- are you fucking crazy, he's old as  _fuck -'_

'- you're causing a scene, you stupid cowboy -'

'- McCree, so help me, put me  _down!'_

They get ushered out of the restaurant, and Jesse's laughing so hard there're tears in his eyes, but he looks back and sees Hanzo and Gabe staring at him like he's the light of their life, and reckons it's not really the laughter that's making him cry.

He wraps an arm around Jack, ignoring the protests that follow, and they both run into the empty night, chased by death threats none of their significant others will keep, and the sound of laughter.

This, he thinks, is what forgiveness sounds like.

Letting himself have things.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! 
> 
> love y'all xx


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